Chapter 7

May hurriedly grabbed Rudy’s arm while greeting louder than usual. Not only was she trembling insufficiently for whatever reprimand might come, but her junior wasn’t even greeting, making her anxious.

“Rudy, Rudy.”

Only after May called her did Rudbeckia slowly grasp the hem of her robe. Her silver hair flowed through the gaps of her carelessly worn hood.

“I greet Your Highness the Prince.”

“What brings you here, Lady Diaz?”

“I came for business.”

“Your guard?”

“The guard is behind the building.”

Rudy kept her gaze on the tip of his shoes and thought,

It’s Elena in this life. That’s good.

Elena, raised under the virtuous Marchioness, had a kind and gentle nature.

Rudy knew her well. Their families had interacted since childhood, and Rudy’s classmate was Elena’s sibling.

Rudbeckia briefly looked up to examine Benedict, then seeing his expression, spoke again.

“I apologize, Your Highness.”

“Your Highness, I carelessly ran my mouth inside the imperial palace. I truly apologize.”

Benedict tilted his head slightly. Seeing his quite displeased face, May clasped her hands together tightly.

“May Gardin.”

May quickly responded to the dry call.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“It’s lunchtime, you may go.”

She hadn’t expected to be dismissed without a single word of reproach, but May didn’t want to miss the chance to escape from Benedict’s presence.

“Thank you.”

May, after giving a quick small response, looked back at Rudy.

Rudy smiled at May. It didn’t take long for May to disappear from her sight after lowering her eyebrows in understanding that everything was fine.

Though they hadn’t arranged it, both stood still, staring at each other. Both he and she had something to say to each other.

“I seem to hear many apologies from you, Lady Diaz.”

“I will be careful not to offer apologies next time.”

Despite his seemingly sarcastic words, she responded calmly without being flustered. It was a textbook, exemplary answer. However, her gaze was far from that.

“Pardon me, Your Highness, but if you came to the infirmary, you must be unwell somewhere, so sending away the healer…”

She quickly swallowed the rest of her words. Besides Elena, her mind had been busy from the moment she connected him with the infirmary. She, who had responded rationally to his sarcastic remarks, had now strayed from reason.

“No. I spoke out of turn.”

“Lady Diaz.”

“Yes.”

His brow gradually furrowed. Rudy waited quietly for his words while biting her lip. She wanted to ask why he came to the infirmary, but she had no right to ask such things.

“Is that all you want to say?”

But as if seeing through her thoughts, Benedict asked her.

Rudy blinked. Her clear red eyes repeatedly hid and appeared. It didn’t take long for her eyes to widen as she stared at him intently without answering.

“Duke Diaz seems to be misunderstanding something.”

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.

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In fact, he had more to say than she did.

This morning’s noble council was a serious meeting discussing the dispatch of knights due to pirates reportedly appearing on the southern Barad coast.

In that meeting, Duke Diaz had stared at Benedict as if seeing him for the first time, and Marquis Hagen, who should have been focused on security, was lost in other thoughts.

Benedict couldn’t help but know why they were acting this way. The Emperor had even called the Marquis’s second daughter to the imperial palace, but that much was bearable.

“Marquis Hagen, was your eldest son the captain of the Fourth Division?”

The Emperor asked while resting his chin during the meeting.

Would they deploy the Fourth Division to the Barad region? Everyone’s thoughts went there.

As the Marquis was about to answer, the Emperor asked further without waiting for a response.

“That friend was still unmarried, right? I heard he was a classmate of Duke Diaz’s daughter at the Imperial School, are they close?”

Emperor Nicholas, who suddenly brought up Rudbeckia’s existence, had wiped away his bored expression and was smiling, finding something amusing.

Marquis Hagen, whose both children had been mentioned by the Emperor today, answered first with a dumbfounded face.

“The families have been acquainted since childhood.”

“Wasn’t he the eldest son who proposed to Lady Diaz three years ago and was rejected?”

“That’s correct.”

Only after this brief small talk did the Emperor’s announcement about the Barad region issue come down.

Since it wasn’t a major issue, they decided to keep it secret to avoid causing unnecessary anxiety. Deploying an entire division would only complicate matters, making things bigger, slower, and more costly, so the captains from each division would handle it within three months.

Benedict was appointed as the commander of all these missions.

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.

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“Did Duke Diaz not say anything separately?”

“Ah… I told him we weren’t that kind of relationship. You must have been very uncomfortable.”

The Emperor said it wasn’t a major issue yet extracted captains from each division for the southern coast, and appointed the Prince as their commander. While there were objections to this unprecedented order from various quarters, Benedict, at the center of it all, quietly clenched his fist.

He wasn’t swayed by this seemingly menial dispatch.

“I wasn’t uncomfortable.”

“That’s good.”

“Are you close with Lord Hagen?”

What swayed him was her marriage proposal.

From Rudbeckia’s perspective, this was a conversation jumping in unpredictable directions.

“By Lord Hagen, do you mean Idris?”

She asked innocently, and his forehead slightly twisted.

Idris von Hagen. The eldest son of the Hagen family and the same age as Rudbeckia and Irene, a fellow Imperial School graduate.

Idris was young and capable. His sociable personality was one reason why he could harmoniously unite the unruly knights of the Fourth Division.

“Should I answer that?”

Though Rudbeckia couldn’t grasp the intention behind the question, she chose to answer.

“We were close friends.”

It was in past tense.

Benedict suppressed his desire to confirm her answer again. She looked up at him with confused eyes.

He slowly relaxed his expression. Though his slightly furrowed face smoothed out, the cold impression didn’t change much due to his naturally stern features.

“Have you eaten?”

It was truly an unpredictable flow of conversation.

“I’m about to go back and eat. Has Your Highness had lunch?”

“No.”

At that moment, Rudbeckia awkwardly stepped back. Her body reacted instinctively, anticipating he might ask her to eat together.

Benedict easily read the meaning behind that gesture. He quietly looked down at Rudy’s feet that had taken a step back, then met her eyes.

When she met his gaze, Rudbeckia felt as if she had done something wrong. She felt like she needed to explain herself to him for merely stepping back one step.

“I think our conversation has gone on long enough, Your Highness. I’ll take my leave now.”

But she didn’t explain, and instead gripped the hem of her robe.

Benedict, having no reason to keep her any longer, nodded.

She passed by him at the end of the dead-end corridor, not even having time to fix her silver hair that had slipped out.

“Miss.”

“Did you wait long? Let’s get something cool to drink at the market on our way back.”

“That sounds good.”

<Have you eaten, Empress?>

<I’ll finish early tomorrow, so let’s have dinner together.>

<How about holding next week’s meeting with the noble ladies in the western garden?>

Rudbeckia turned back briefly while leaving the Imperial Palace. The western garden was a space directly visible from the Emperor’s office where the sun set.

She was glad she hadn’t loved him in the past. If she had loved him and then returned to this time, she was certain she would feel even more lonely and heartbroken than now.

Only when she reached the market did she realize she hadn’t asked why he had come to the infirmary.

* * *

“Should I close the business?”

On the way home in a carriage, Rudbeckia asked Hugo, who sat across from her, and he immediately nodded as if it was obvious.

“Please do, Miss.”

“Is it serious enough to warrant a ‘please’?”

“Of course. It’s the quickest path to making a peaceful family even more peaceful.”

Hugo had no intention of offering empty words or comfort, and Rudbeckia smiled watching him.

Hugo’s loyalty to Friedrich, stemming from his steadfast personality, was enough to turn the captain of the Diaz Racht Knights into a guard knight for the little miss.

“Would Father like that?”

“Of course.”

“Then how about closing shop and going on a trip?”

“A trip? Miss, have you not thought about marriage?”

Rudbeckia reflexively rolled her eyes. Just then, a couple passed by outside the carriage, returning from shopping together. At that moment, she thought of a man with whom she could never do such ordinary things like shopping.

“No. I’ll live as a Diaz forever.”

She declared with raised eyebrows. After saying it, she felt somehow sorry toward that man, but she remained convinced this was the best way for both her and her family to remain peaceful.

Rudbeckia smiled lightly at Hugo’s disgruntled face.

“Why that expression?”

“Because you’ve made a statement I absolutely cannot support.”

Their carriage arrived at the Diaz mansion in the capital. Hugo, who got out first, didn’t hide his bizarre expression as he extended his hand to his miss.